Viewed purely as a business enterprise, the exchange is a failure. Having charity to a particular class as its object pure and simple, no other result could be expected. Aside from the few private exchanges that have been started as business ventures, but two or three are self-supporting. That at New Orleans has been self-supporting from its organization, and it has been one of the best organized and most successful of all the associations. Some of the organizations go so far as to say that self-support has never been an object with them.[18] In the great majority of the exchanges a commission of ten per cent is charged on all goods sold, but this sum is inadequate to meet current expenses. The exchange, therefore, relies for its support upon private contributions and the ordinary means adopted by other benevolent organizations for increasing their revenues. The treasurers’ reports show that part of the funds at command have been derived from charity balls, calico balls, rose shows, chrysanthemum shows, flower festivals, baseball benefits, picnics, excursions, concerts, bazars, lectures, readings, Valentine’s Day cotillon suppers, concert suppers, club entertainments, carnivals, kermesses, sale of cook-books, flower-seeds, and Jenness-Miller goods, and in some instances from raffles. This fact alone separates the exchange from other business enterprises. Having no capital to invest, it must pursue a hand-to-mouth policy, and employ means for increasing its resources which would never be considered by other business houses. In a few cases where exchanges own their buildings and sublet parts of them, or where they are able to maintain a profitable lunch department, it is possible more nearly to make both ends meet. Under other circumstances the exchange becomes poorer as its business increases, and there is a fresh demand for subscriptions and entertainments to meet current expenses. It is true that the exchange does not wish to be considered a business enterprise and be judged by ordinary business rules, but the fact that it enters the business field as a competitor with other enterprises makes it inevitable that it be judged as a business house, and not as a charitable organization. The persistence with which different exchanges iterate and reiterate the statement that their object is charity “to needy gentlewomen,” and not financial return, is evidence of a consciousness of their present ambiguous position. As long as the exchange undertakes business activities, it cannot escape judgment by business principles.